I think it would be more useful to introduce instant runoff voting to the United States. I want to see third parties start having more of a voice in national politics, without necessarily functioning as spoilers. (Let me be clear that I don’t *blame* them and I don’t agree they *are* spoilers, but they are certainly perceived that way by others.) You don’t need a Constitutional amendment to use IRV, either, because the feds don’t control how votes are tallied as long as no fraud is taking place.

I also want to see us go back to all paper ballots. I think it’s ridiculous that our republican democracy hinges on whether a machine somewhere has been stealth-programmed, or was hacked, or has broken down. The absentee ballots here in Ohio are simply made of cardstock and you fill in the oval next to the candidate’s name. And if precincts are kept small enough it takes next to no time to count the ballots–I mean, we’ve managed it all these years before the advent of computer voting machines. It ain’t rocket science.

(Even with voting machines printing out paper vote receipts I am reminded of some of the issues I have to deal with when making purchases at a store that prints out receipts–what if the ink runs dry, or the paper runs out?)

I also think that if you are an American citizen you should not have to register to vote, period. You automatically have the franchise, even as a felon in some states, so why shouldn’t you exercise it?

I’m happy with who won but I still think our system is messed up and I would like to see it change for the better.

They also base it on exit polling. The networks called the race at precisely 8 pm PST, just as West coast polls closed, with no returns coming in. The exit polling gave Washington, Oregon, and California to Obama with huge margins, so there wasn’t much reason to wait.

While the reason you give for the existence of the electoral college is partially correct that rationale was long ago made obsolete when states started directing their electors to vote according to the popular vote within a state. The secondary purpose for the electoral college was to inhibit the populous states from dominating the less populous states. The electoral college still serves that purpose, but that can be changed without a constitutional amendment. The constitution doesn’t dictate how the states allocate their electors. There is a movement in some states to form a union of states that agree to allocate their electors according to the national popular vote, turning the presidential election into a pure democracy.